The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 514

VENTURA LOS ANGELES COUNTY NEWS WEATHER EDITORIALS I Ventura THURSDAY fio6 Slitncs MAY 30, 1991 VCCCt Coumty HIGHLIGHTS Opponents Say Landfill Study Is Inadequate a Weldon Canyon: The panel, considering the environmental report will delay a decision for at least three weeks. Cleanup of Keys Sought in Suit a Ventura: Owners of the waterfront homes ask 1 5 million in damages and a permanent maintenance agreement. Ventura County KEYS LAWSUIT: The owners of 82 homes in the Ventura Keys subdivision of Ventura sued the city, county, state and two other agencies, blaming them for the silt and pollution clogging the waterway near their homes. Bt LANDFILL DISCUSSION: About a dozen Ventura and Ojai Valley residents told a county panel that a $1 -million environmental study on a proposed landfill at Weldon Canyon fails to address their concerns about air pollution and danger to wildlife. Bl TAPE FLAYED: A courtroom of spectators waited anxiously for a secret tape-recording to be played in the Tom and Ingrid Ely embezzlement and conspiracy case.

But the tape turned out to be nearly inaudible. Bl STATION SOLD: The operators of KADY-TV Channel 63 announced a deal to buy out the station's out-of-state owners. The deal would put the county's only full-, power Knglish-language television station under local ownership for the first time. Bl ALANIIAGMain limes About 70 people attended the meeting of the Environmental Report Review Committee. Stanley Koval, above, an Ojai resident, opposes plan for a landfill in Weldon Canyon.

L.A. County By HUGO MARTIN TIMHS STAFF WRITER About a dozen Ventura and Ojai Valley residents told a county panel Wednesday that a $l-million environmental study on a proposed landfill at Weldon Canyon fails to address their concerns about air pollution and danger to wildlife. The residents were among almost 70: opponents and supporters of the Weldon Canyon dump who packed a small room at the Ventura County Government Center for a two-hour hearing before the county's Environmental Report Review Committee. "We do not think the study is adequate," said Ruth Shimer, a member of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County. "It's very inadequate." The committee includes seven top county staff members who must decide whether the environmental study, which was completed in February, addresses all the environmental side effects of the dump and considers all reasonable alternatives.

The committee decided to wait at least three weeks before making a final decision to give county planning officials time to respond to 635 written questions and comments sent to the courtty about the proposed dump. Weldon Canyon, about a mile east of California 33 and north of Canada Larga Road, was identified by a 1985 county study as the best of 38 possible sites for a new landfill because of its clay soil and proximity to the cities of the western county. For the proposed developer of the dump, Waste Management of North America winning the committee's support is an important first step toward getting the project approved. Waste Management, which operates another' Please see DUMP, BS By GARY GORMAN TIMES STAFF WRITER The owners of 82 homes in the Ventura Keys subdivision of Ventura sued the city, county, state and two other agencies Wednesday, blaming them for the silt and pollution clogging the waterway around their homes. The suit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court, seeks at least $15 million in damages, including compensation for lowered property values.

It also requests a permanent injunctibn to require the defendants to clean and maintain the waterway. In response, City Atty. Peter D. Bulens said, "We are contesting the allegations that we are responsible for the situation." Frank O. Sieh, an attorney in the county counsel's office, gave a similar reply to the suit's allegation that a barranca built by the Ventura County Flood Control District has polluted the waterway.

He said the barranca serves a large area, including the city of Ventura, and that neither the county nor the district is responsible for everything entering it. The Ventura Keys, a neighborhood of 300 waterfront houses north of the Ventura Harbor, was developed in the early 1960s. A channel provides access from the man-made waterway around the homes to the harbor and from there to the Pacific Ocean. The city accepted responsibility for maintenance of the water-, way, the suit says. But over the years, "defendants have been using the Keys waterway as a public dumping ground," denying the residents the full enjoyment of their property, the suit says.

A major culprit in the pollution, according to the suit, is the county-owned Arundcll Barranca. About the same time as the Keys subdivision was developed, the county diverted the barranca so that it drained into the harbor instead of the Santa Clara River. Over the years, the suit says, the defendants allowed many new developments to use the barranca without assessing the effect on the Keys waterway, Please see KEYS, 1 SCHOOL FUNDING CUTS: Because of a sharp decline in state revenue, the Los Angeles Unified School District faces the prospect of cutting about 10 from its 1991-92 budget. BO BUDGET APPROVED: On the second time around, the Los Angeles City Council narrowly approved a record budget. BG CHILDREN WITH AIDS: A home in Culver City reflects the changing face of the AIDS epidemic, helping children who have no one to care for them.

B6 VANDALISM ARRESTS: Two boys and a girl were arrested after a mother told police her children were responsible for the $27,000 vandalism rampage that left a North Hollywood elementary school a shambles. B7 EDITORIALS IRAN: After years of revolutionary ferment and a war with Iraq, it is signaling interest in improving relations with the West and Arab neighbors. B12 COMMENTARY DOUBTERS' CHORUS: Journalists are disliked by the public not because they are aggressive, but because appear, especially on TV, as professional cynics who know little of the real world. By Jay Rosen. B13 ON THE RECORD "All the stuff you said about Al is all recorded." Ventura County Community College District Trustee James (Tom) Ely, reportedly to Chancellor Barbara Derryberry on a videotape played during Ely's trial on conspiracy and embezzlement charges.

Bl Ely Trial Spectators Listen to Mostly Inaudible Tape garbled words Wednesday afternoon. The "private and personal" comments Derryberry said she made about district officials were mostly inaudible. At one point during the recording, Derryberry mentioned former district Chancellor Al Fernandez, but most of her words were jumbled throughout the remainder of the recording. "So much for that," said one spectator as she loft the court The jury had been dismissed, and Judge Lawrence Storch had agreed to play the videotape, which Derryberry said Ely had threatened to make public unless she approved the trustee's disputed expenses. Court spectators and attorneys had waited all day to hear the juicy tidbits.

But what had started Tuesday as a strange twist in the complicated conspiracy and embezzlement trial turned into a heap of room. Nevertheless, Deputy Atty. Carol Nelson is asking that the garbled tape, made while Derryberry and the Elys were sightseeing in Louisville, in 1988, be used as evidence. She said there are two comments that Ely made on the tape that could be considered threatening. The tape started with a conversation between the Elys and Derryberry about the Kentucky Please see TRIAL, 1 By TINA DAUNT TIMES STAFF WRITER They sat on the edges of their chairs Wednesday straining to hear the secretly tape-recorded comments that Ventura County Community College District Chancellor Barbara Derryberry made about district officials.

It was to be the climax of a long day of testimony in the trial of Trustee James (Tom) Ely and his wife, Ingrid. Authorities Say Outsiders May Have Helped Escapees LOTTERY RESULTS MAY 29 slaying of Jacqueline Kirkham, 43, in Malibu on Tuesday. Witnesses said they saw three young men, ages 15 to 18, fleeing Zuma Beach County Park in Kirkham's red 1990 Nissan 240SX sports car Tuesday afternoon. Deputies said they believe that the three took the car after stabbing Kirkham several times in a public restroom 200 yards from the beach lifeguard headquarters. Although detectives there was no evidence linking the four Please see ESCAPEES, B5 By MACK REED TIMES STAFF WHITER California Youth Authority officials said Wednesday that outsiders may have helped in the escape Sunday of four men, including two convicted murderers, from the Ventura School in Cam-arillo.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials said they were continuing their search for the four Los Angeles-area men, and examining a possible link between their escape and the Wednesday's Winning Numbers: 13-18-25-35-41-47 Bonus Number 9 Lotto Jackpot $7.7 million Recorded Information English 976-4275 Spanish 976-5275 TOPPER Wednesday's Winning Cities: Woodland Hills Oceanslde Northrldge DECCO Wednesday's Winning Cards: KADYMay Be Sold to Area Buyers Television: The deal means the county's largest English-language station will be under local ownership. By CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS TIMES STAFF WRITER The operators of KADY-TV Channel 63 on Wednesday announced a deal to buy out the station's out-of-state owners, putting the county's only full-power English-language television station under local ownership for the first time. The proposed sale, dependent upon approval from the Federal Communications Commission, is estimated to carry a price of more than $10 million. "We will be a part of the community and will be responsive to it," said John Huddy, who oversees the station's operations now and heads the investors' group planning the purchase. "One of the things a television station does is help define a community." Last month, the station an- Ventura Gadfly Won't Be Charged in Car Incident LAWHENCEK.IIO Los Allgolos Times John Huddy, right, with employee in KADY-TV control room, is heading an investors' group that is trying to buy the station.

5 Hearts: 9 Clubs: 6 Diamonds: Jack Spades: 10 ect" is to resume newscasts, if KADY can attract enough advertising and contain costs, perhaps through cooperation with another local media outlet. While cable' companies countywide maintain channels that broadcast City Council meetings and local functions to their own customers, KADY is Please see KADY, Bl nounced plans to expand local coverage of special events, listing 12 special programs to be broadcast over the next six months, from Seabee Days in Port Hueneme in June to Cal Lutheran University football games this fall. The station attempted half-hour nightly newscasts for a time, but abandoned them In 1989. Huddy said his "pet proj Sheriff's officials reported that Williams grazed Wendy Weeks with his red Volvo and then drove at Richard Hanna. The two were trying to serve Williams with eviction papers at the Church of Christ in Ojai, where he had been holding services.

Williams then fled the scene, authorities said. "To prove the assault charges, we really need to prove that he deliberately tried to hit this woman and then later the man," Please see GADFLY, B4 By MACK REED TIMES STAFF WRITER Ventura County prosecutors said Wednesday that they will not file charges against a Ventura gadfly who allegedly drove his car at two process servers in the Ojai area. There is not enough evidence to bring Carroll Dean Williams, 48, to trial for the May 19 incident involving his car and two private process servers, Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Totten said.

INDEX B2.B3 News Roundup Only in L.A. B6 L.A. County News Bll Weather, Air Quality.